


Black Water

by Starfire072302



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Pacific Rim: The Black (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), Possible smut, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Reader is a BAMF, Reader-Insert, Shipwrecks, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Survivor Guilt, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Trauma, ish, reader has ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 16:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30007737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfire072302/pseuds/Starfire072302
Summary: After a catastrophic shipwreck caused by a kaiju during a storm of which you are the sole survivor, you end up stranded in Australia, a formerly prosperous nation turned dead zone when, five years ago, Operation Black was initiated after the continent became overrun by kaiju, cutting off all communication. You’re rescued by a pair of siblings with a modified training Jaeger, but in order to get home, you have to survive. And in order to survive, you have to fight like hell. But the kaiju aren’t your only adversaries. Your very own demons seem to be getting in the way, as well as your newly developing feelings for Taylor Travis.Either way, you’re in for one hell of a ride.
Relationships: Taylor Travis/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Black Water

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I watched Pacific Rim: The Black and I’m obsessed, so here we are. I also watched the films several times over and loved them.
> 
> I’ll work on my other fics soon, I had some health issues regarding some carpal instability in my right wrist, but I’ve been managing the pain with medicine, so I’ll be able to work on my stories again soon.

It was supposed to be your first trip away from home.

You’d saved up money through summer jobs since freshman year, doing anything you could to go see the world. You’d always been curious, so wide eyed and adventurous, and even when people told you it was dangerous, that only made you want to know more. Call it a flaw, but fear always came second for you. The more you feared something, the more you wanted to know about it.  So you bought tickets for yourself to go on a cruise through the Tasman Sea. You bought the best tickets money could buy so you could bask in the luxury of your hard work, seeing the world, just like you’d always wanted. You’d be starting in Auckland, New Zealand and ending the trip in Hobart, Tasmania, where you’d then fly home. You’d be out at sea and seeing whatever you could for an entire month. It was safe. 

Or it was _supposed_ to be.

And you were barely awake when everything went to hell.

You had no idea what time it was when you woke, but it was still dark and the glass doors that led to your balcony were streaked with rain. The ocean outside looked angry, black as midnight. You rolled over in your bed, pulled the blankets up to your ear, and closed your eyes again. The ship had been hit by storms before. It was nothing new. And your bed was so warm. You had another day of lounging poolside and watching the waves tomorrow as you sipped complementary mock tails and ate whatever you pleased.

It was the last few days of the cruise and you were getting homesick, so you were content with the fact that you’d be seeing Hobart before heading home. It was supposed to be a beautiful city, and Tasmania was one of the only parts of Australia left habitable after the Kaiju started appearing from breaches on the continent. It was a safe haven from the horror farther inland. You wanted to explore the island before flying home, and you’d saved up just enough to do so. 

You let out a soft breath and let yourself be lulled back to sleep by the sound of the rain beating against the glass. 

Your sleep was short lived, however, because you woke up again not much later. You sat up in bed and looked out your window, but it was too dark to see anything. The ship rocked, making the water in the glass on your bedside table slosh. The storm must be big, you decided, and you reached for your phone, switching it on. The light was nearly blinding to your dark adjusted eyes, and you squinted as you turned down the brightness. The time read two fifteen in the morning. You checked your weather app.

It was apparently supposed to storm the rest of the night and into tomorrow morning. You chewed your lip. So much for lounging poolside. Your phone buzzed with a text message from your sister, Emma.

_ “All okay?” _ It read.

You opened the message and typed out a reply. 

_ “Yeah.” _

You were about to switch your phone off when a reply came through. 

_ “What’re you doing awake?” _

Truthfully, you had no idea. You puffed out your cheeks. You did the mental math and figured it would be about ten in the morning where Emma was back in the United States, so you knew it would make sense for her to be awake. 

_ “No idea _ _,”_ you wrote. Then, as an afterthought,  _ “I think something woke me up.” _

Your sister sent the eyes emoji, and you smiled. 

_ “I dunno what it was. There’s a storm. Big one. The boat is rocking. Maybe that woke me up.” _

You missed Emma. She was home with your parents and enjoying her summer vacation. She made a point of texting you every day to see how her big sister was doing. It made you happy. The two of you had always been close, so the distance was hard on you. You flipped to your camera and snapped a picture of your rain splattered windows, the flash lighting up the glass. You wrinkled your nose and turned the flash off, taking another picture. 

This photo caught the stormy sea just as a flash of lightning lit up the sky, the slate grey waves capped with white and highlighted with turquoise. It was a good picture. You hit send, and the picture took a moment to process before it delivered.

_ “Ooh, that’s cool,”  _ Emma answered. 

You tapped on the photo to examine it. You’d snapped the photo just as a wave was rising in the distance, one that would have been more than big enough to douse a smaller boat with seawater, but cruise ships are large enough to avoid that problem. However, had a stateroom on one of the lower decks, so if a wave was big enough, your balcony could get sprayed. But still, the boat rocked and swayed in the turbulent waves. 

You gazed at the sea in the photo, then stood up to cross to the glass. You grabbed some fresh clothes from the dresser and pulled them on. You doubted you’d be going back to sleep, so you may as well get dressed. Lightning flashed, lighting up the sea and the restless sky, but when the waves were highlighted with that turquoise tint again, you saw something within them. Something moving. You narrowed your eyes, but after the flash of lightning was gone, it was too dark to see anything but the rain on your window and your own reflection. 

You needed a closer look. 

You grabbed your fleece jacket from the chair beside the balcony doors; it tended to get chilly when you were out on the open sea at night, and you put your phone in the pocket, zipping it shut. When you opened the glass doors, the rain and sea spray blasted into your face, making you sputter and wish you’d put on leggings instead of shorts before going outside. 

The air smelled of ozone and the briny scent that came with the ocean, the smell of salt water. You looked over the balcony at the churning sea below. The balcony below you, the one at the very bottom, was being buffeted by waves, and you couldn’t help but feel a little bad for whoever had to deal with that in the morning. Then again, you could feel the slickness of the water tossed to your balcony under your bare feet, so you were in the same boat as them, literally. The rain was making your hair stick to your face, and you raised a hand to push it back, gathering the damp locks into a low ponytail at the base of your neck, tying it with a band around your wrist. 

Lightning flashed again and your eyes darted to the spot you’d seen something before, but there was nothing. Of course there was nothing. What  _ could _ there be? The closest kaiju were inland in Australia, and you were too far away for them to be a possibility. Thunder grumbled overhead, and you glanced at the sky as a fork of lightning struck, soon followed by another crash of thunder. 

But in that light, you saw it again. Something big was moving. You backed away from the balcony a little bit, but you kept your eyes locked on that spot until lightning lit the sky again, but it was gone. The ship rocked and you grabbed onto the balcony railing to keep from sliding towards the doors as the lounge chairs on either side of you did with a dull thud. When it tilted the other direction, you got a nice view of the waves engulfing the lower balcony, receding as the boat righted itself. 

Everything was loud around you, the waves crashing against the ship and each other, the rain hitting the decks and the waves, the thunder and wind roaring around you. Your skin was dewy and your hair was damp with lukewarm rain and sea spray, the front of your clothes speckled with moisture. But you couldn’t go back inside, not after seeing that. What  was that? 

You pulled your phone from your pocket and turned away from the sea to type a message to your sister.

_ “There’s something big in the water.” _

You were about to put the device back into your pocket when your sister replied.

_ “Like a shark?” _

_ “No,”  _ you replied,  _ “bigger.” _

Your stomach was beginning to churn, but you’d never gotten seasick before, so you chalked it up to nerves. You pocketed the phone as it vibrated again, and you would have checked the message if you hadn’t seen something much more important. You slowly zipped the pocket, and as if in a trance, moved closer to the railing. You couldn’t see whatever it was clearly, but it was massive. It looked like an island, but there was no way you could have missed something like that. The lightning flashed and for a brief second, you got a good look at it. The ‘island’ was moving. 

A massive, spiny back curved above the waves before slipping beneath them again, sending waves up the side of the ship, and you covered your face and ducked behind the glass railing of the balcony as they sprayed towards you. Panic was beginning to rise in your throat. You knew what that was, even though you didn’t want to believe it, because if that was what you thought it was, you were going to die. You tried in vain to convince yourself it was an island and the waves had just washed over it and hidden it from view in the storm but you knew that wasn’t possible. Islands don’t have spines. Islands don’t move. You pulled your phone from your pocket with a shaking hand, eyes filling with tears as you looked at Emma’s message, probably one of the last messages you’d ever get from her. 

_ “Like what?”  _ It read.

Your hands were shaking so bad you had to retype the word four times, but you finally managed, hitting send.

_ “Kaiju.” _

You had a sneaking suspicion you knew what had happened. The storm had knocked the ship off course and instead of heading towards Hobart, the ship had veered into the Bass Strait. The abandoned city of Melbourne had to be near by, and that meant rifts. A kaiju saw your ship and found its free lunch: some inspecting, stupid humans who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, it was stalking its prey. 

And you were going to die.

Because five years ago, the PPDC declared the continent of Australia lost and commenced Operation Blackout, withdrawing all Jaegers and destroying shatterdomes to avoid being compromised. There were no Jaegers in Australia, and while Tasmania had a few, there were no monitors this close to the mainland because the area was infested with kaiju. You were on your own. No Jaeger was coming to swoop in and valiantly battle the kaiju, saving your life.

Your phone buzzed, and you glanced at the screen, eyes blurry with tears. 

_ “(Y/N), what!?” _

You gulped back a sob as hopeless, painful fear rose in your chest. 

_“I love you,”_ you wrote,  _ “tell mom and dad I love them, too.” _

The bubble at the bottom of the screen popped up to show your sister was typing. You glanced over your shoulder as lightning flashed again and you saw the thing’s back curve through the water again. 

When you looked back, the message read,  _ “what are you talking about?” _

You swallowed your terror. You had no chance of survival against a foe that big, and no amount of martial arts training would be able to save you. 

_ “Em,”  _ you wrote,  _ “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m going to be home on time.” _

The boat rocked hard, and you shoved your phone in your pocket, shooting to your feet and pressing your back against the glass doors that led back into your stateroom. The thing was rising from the depths. 

It was massive. You’d seen old footage from the kaiju war and during the uprising, but nothing prepared you for what was in front of you. It was only halfway out of the water and its torso and head alone were taller than the ship. You couldn’t make out much other than the massive, hulking shape, but when the lightning flashed, your breath got stuck in your throat.

To say it was terrifying was an understatement. The kaiju was massive with pitch black skin and blue veins running along its arms and crisscrossing along its chest. The head was shaped almost like a hammerhead shark’s, but below where the massive, orange eyes were on either side of the jutting eye stalks, a second set were situated just above the gargantuan jowls. Spines rose from its back like a stegosaurus. The kaiju’s movement sent massive waves up the side of the ship, but you were too petrified to move, and you were showered with salt water. 

The jaws opened wide, wider than you thought possible, and when it roared, it was like the sound of the world coming to an end. You clamped your hands over your ears, eyes fixed on the monster, at the blue glow inside its mouth as it bellowed its warning cry, and you watched as the people around you began to emerge onto their balconies to find out what the noise was. 

Unsuspecting. 

They didn’t know this would happen. Nobody could have known. 

You didn’t want to die. You had things you still wanted to do. There were souvenirs in your dresser for your sister, carefully picked just for her, and you’d been waiting to see the look on her and your parent’s faces as you presented them with things from your travels. You didn’t know how, but you were going to survive.

You had to. And if you died, you’d go down swinging.

Oh, don’t take this the wrong way. You were still terrified. Your resolve to survive didn’t erase your fear. You dashed inside your stateroom and pulled open your drawer, stuffing the small bag of souvenirs into your pocket. You’d seen a lifeboat just parallel to the balcony below you, and if you could make it to that balcony, you could get into that life boat. Of course, you didn’t know for sure if you’d even make it before you were snatched up by the kaiju and eaten alive, but if you wanted to survive you had to take that chance.

_ Come on, (Y/N). Be brave. _

The boat rocked in a way that could have only meant that the kaiju had shoved it, and you felt the vessel moving to the side, the momentum sending you into the wall beside your dresser, knocking the wind clean out of you. You didn’t have time to catch your breath. You zipped your jacket up to your chin, zipped your pockets closed, and opened the balcony doors. 

Your face went white, your courage fueled by crazy adrenaline draining out the soles of your bare feet. A massive hole was in the side of the ship next to you, as if several staterooms had been crudely carved out, and you tried with all your might not to be think about the fates of the former inhabitants. The kaiju roared, rattling the windows behind you. You grit your teeth. A sharp, tinny whistling sound filled the air as the ship sent up flares, high up into the sky and exploding into scarlet fireworks, but you knew by the time the PPDC saw the signal in Tasmania, and sent Jaegers out to fight the monster, it would be too late. The ship would be at the bottom of the ocean and you’d be dead. 

“Not today,” you hissed, and you leaped over your balcony, landing on the surface below in a clumsy heap, excruciating pain shooting up your left leg. You’d felt your ankle bend funny as you landed, but now was not the time to worry about that. You hauled yourself to your feet using the railing, and when you looked over your shoulder at the stateroom the balcony was connected to, a petrified woman stared back at you. 

You wrenched open the doors and grabbed her hand. 

“Get moving if you want to survive,” you called, voice almost drowned out by the kaiju’s roar.

“No, no!” She wrestled herself free, “the jaegers will come, they’ll save us!”

The look in her eyes was insane, manic, like a frightened animal. 

You looked at her sadly. “No. No jaegers are coming. You need to come with me if you want to survive.”

She laughed. A crazy, breathless laugh. “Do you have a jaeger?”

You paused. “No, but—”

“Then you can’t help me!”

She slammed the door shut and you rushed forward to try and pull it open again, but she’d locked it. You bit your lip, the turned towards the life boat. 

It was gone.

You moved to the edge of the railing, and saw with tremendous relief that it wasn’t gone, but one of the mooring ropes had snapped, and the boat was dangling off the side of the ship. It was a covered lifeboat, one of those orange ones that looked like a rejected submarine, and you could see the door on the side, closed. You had to aim this jump just right or you’d fall into the ocean and drown. The boat rocked as the kaiju moved to the bow, massive claws tearing chunks from the staterooms and the hull. You knew the boat would sink if this was kept up, and as the ship began to tilt back, you knew it already was sinking. Slowly, but surely. You probably had about an hour at best before the ship was fully underwater. But with the kaiju continuing to attack, that window of time could get even smaller. 

You braced yourself on the balcony and leapt for the boat, arms and legs flailing as you grasped for a hold, and you nearly sobbed with relief when you found one in the form of the door handle. You nearly fell off as your weight pulled the handle and opened the door.

_ Come on, come on! _

You were dangling for dear life as you took a chance and grabbed for the rim that circled the small window, and it was barely big enough for you to hold onto. Your fingers were slipping. You grunted and bent your body at the waist, locking your toes on the edge of the door and using the adrenaline fueled strength that filled your body to straighten yourself and toss your arms inside the boat.  It took a few tried to haul yourself inside, and when you finally did, you tumbled down towards the end that was tipping towards the sea. You grabbed the edge of a seat to prevent falling all the way down, and with a grunt of effort, you dragged yourself up to the door again. 

_ Okay. I’m inside. But now I need to launch the boat and get as far away as I can from the ship before it sinks.  _

The bellow of the kaiju and the mingled, distant screams of the passengers still on board snapped you from your thoughts. You yanked a life jacket from where it was hanging above the seat closest to you, struggling to get it onto your body. Once it was fastened, you rested your feet on the edge of the same seat and leaned out the door, grabbing for the handle. You needed to shut the door or when the boat was released from the remaining mooring rope, it would fill with water, and, life jacket or not, you’d drown, pulled down by the life boat.

The handle was just out of reach, and you strained your arms, stretching as far as you could until the very tips of your fingers grazed the metal, but no use. You grit your teeth at the pain as you stood on your tiptoes, holding firm even as your leg trembled and threatened to give out, and with a gasp, your fingers wrapped around the handle. You leaned back and let gravity do the work as you fell and pulled the door with you. 

It slammed shut with a deafening clang, and your ears rang as you twisted the handle to lock the door. You were totally out of breath, but you couldn’t allow yourself even a moment to rest. You remembered from the tour in the beginning of the voyage that the tour guide explained that the life boats had motors in case of emergency, but an engineer would be assigned to each life boat and they would know what to do.

Well, there was no engineer in sight, but this was definitely an emergency. You felt your stomach roll as the boat swayed, the mooring groaning under the weight. You needed to get to the small cabin, and you could see the door on the wall above you, black letters emblazoned across the white metal telling you where it lead. You’d need to jump for it. Pain laced up your ankle, and you gave yourself a mental note to find a first aid kit after you’d gotten the boat in the water, but before you could even move, the mooring creaked one last time, and with a terrible grinding sound, it snapped. 

It was like time stood still as the boat plummeted towards the water, and you did what any rational person would do in your situation.

You screamed. 

Luckily, the boat was watertight, but the impact sent your toppling to the floor in a painful heap. You groaned in pain, barely giving yourself recovery time before you were on your feet again, limping towards the door that led to the cabin. You grunted as you tugged the door open and hobbled up the short staircase, collapsing onto the carpeted floor, breath painful. 

_ Come on, (Y/N) come on! _

You dragged yourself to the captain’s chair and strapped yourself in, mind blank as you stared at the panel of buttons in front of you. You’d never driven a boat before, but you were about to get the world’s worst crash course. You knew how to drive, but you assumed knowing when to put on a turn signal or parallel park didn’t really apply to driving a boat.

Your eyes were frantic as you scanned the dashboard, and you prayed to any god that would listen for help, that you would get out of here without any further injury. You finally located the button that started the boat (thank god it didn’t need keys, probably because of emergency situations like this), and the engine roared to life. You allowed yourself a cry of victory as you yanked down the throttle as far as it could go, and the boat rocketed forward after a moment of stalling. 

You didn’t dare hit the lights in fear of attracting the kaiju’s attention, and when you looked back over your shoulder at the cruise ship, you watched as the monster’s claws raked through where you knew your stateroom had been. If you’d stayed any longer, you’d have been shredded. Your heart sank when you realized the lady you’d tried to save had suffered that fate. She died believing help was coming when there was none. You leaned back in your chair, keeping your eyes fixed on the dark horizon, the storm still raging on. You knew it took an experienced captain to navigate the sea during a storm, something you were not, but you had to try.

There was a radio in the middle of the dashboard, and you frantically twisted the knobs until static and chatter roared through the speakers. You grabbed the receiver and spoke.

“I—“ you coughed, “I need help! My ship was attacked, near Tasmania, I think we’re in Bass Strait. Kaiju, it’s a kaiju, we need help!”

A wave washed over the front of the boat, and you grit your teeth, tears finally falling as you let your disastrous situation sink in.

A man’s voice came over the radio. 

_ “Ma’am? Ma’am? Where—“ _

The voice dissolved into static and you screamed in frustration. The storm had to be interfering with the radio.

You looked back over your shoulder as the cruise ship’s lights flickered off in a sporadic pattern, sparks from the failing electrical system dancing over the water, silhouetting the kaiju’s form as it let out another deafening roar. It hadn’t noticed you leave, and you heaved a sigh of relief. You were lucky. Nobody else on that ship had gotten so lucky. 

Horror spread across your face as any hope of your fellow passenger’s survival disappeared from your mind. With a swipe of its mighty claws, the kaiju cleaved through the ship right down the middle, and you killed the engine of your own boat, knowing you were good and far enough away from the ship as not to be affected by the pull as the great vessel sank. You could hear the roar of the kaiju and the deafening sound of metal beams snapping, but you couldn’t hear the screams. You were thankful for that.

You forced yourself to look ahead of you again, unstrapping yourself from the captain’s chair. There was a first aid kit hanging by a hook on the wall, and you pulled it down and set it across your lap.

For the first time, you looked down at your injured ankle. 

It wasn’t good. It had swollen to the size of a tennis ball, swathed with deep purple and plum colored swatches. Pain flooded your ankle as soon as you looked at it, and you instinctively grabbed at it, whining in pain. It was definitely broken. You didn’t know how badly. But it hurt. It was a miracle you’d been able to walk like you’d been doing, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

You opened the first aid kit. It was full of bandages and cold packs and over the counter pain killers; topical gels and sutures and disinfectant. You took a role of bandage from inside, as well as a bottle of Tylenol. You dumped two of the pills into your palm, tossing them back and swallowing them dry with some effort. You knew you’d probably find bottled water around here somewhere, but you needed to take care of this, first.

You rubbed a cooling topical gel across your injury, hissing at the pressure, then wrapped it tightly with a roll of ace bandage. Some of the pain dissolved with the new support, but it was still painful. You tried to stand, which proved to be a bad idea, and you needed to support yourself on the wall. You eased yourself back down onto the floor. You noticed an emergency blanket hanging beside where the first aid kit had been, and you grabbed it, opening the package and pulling it around your body. 

You were exhausted. The adrenaline was beginning to fade. You moved to your feet again with painstaking slowness, but where the ship was sinking, cleaved in half, the kaiju was gone. The lights of the ship were out, and there was no noise other than the howling wind and the roar of the waves. You slid to the floor again, laying down on your side and curling into a ball in your blanket. 

You wanted to stay awake. But you’d have to wait until the storm was over to try and contact any kind of help. You’d lost all your luggage, and all you had was your phone, the small bag of souvenirs, and the clothes on your back. You had a working boat with a motor, but you didn’t know how long the fuel in the tank would last, and when you were out of fuel, you’d be forced to drift in the ocean with the supplies on board until you were out. With luck, you’d wash up back in Tasmania, but you doubted that would happen. You had no idea where you were, other than the fact that you were most likely in Bass Strait, but you didn’t know where in said strait you were.

Exhaustion tugged at the corners of your mind, and you let your eyes fall closed. The floor wasn’t comfortable, but without the adrenaline keeping you moving, you could have fallen asleep anywhere. 

You barely had any time to think before you were asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> You have no idea how many maps I had to look at while writing this.


End file.
